Canto XXIX Notes from The Inferno

The Inferno Canto XXIX

The mutilated souls make Dante want to weep, but Virgil urges him on. Dante reveals that he was looking for his father's cousin, Geri del Bello, among the sowers of discord. Virgil admits that he saw the cousin gesture threateningly at Dante from afar, and Dante guesses that the motivation for this is that Dante's family has not yet avenged Geri's violent death for him. They reach the tenth chasm and Dante's ears are pierced by piteous screams and a vile smell of gangrene limbs assaults his nose. This chasm holds the falsifiers who are punished with various diseases. Some lay in heaps and others crawl. Two scab-covered souls sit, back-to-back, scratching themselves vigorously. The first is Griffolino of Arezzo, who was an alchemist, one who creates false gold. He tells them he was burnt to death by Albert of Siena for failing to make him able to fly after claiming to be able to do so. Virgil comments that few are as vain as the Sienese, and the other soul lists off a number of particularly vain Sienese, famous for competitively squandering their wealth. He is Capocchio of Siena, also being punished here for alchemy.